


Oh Captain, My Captain!

by Swifty_Fox



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, its just really fluffy guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:21:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28164657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Swifty_Fox/pseuds/Swifty_Fox
Summary: Remus recovers from a night under the full moon.In Which They Both Aggressively Hit On Eachother Using Quotes From 20th Century Revolutionaries and Poets
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 9
Kudos: 96





	Oh Captain, My Captain!

Those mornings after the full moon are always the roughest. 

Moony’s breath rattles in his chest, each rib seeming to expand in its own turn with his inhales. Mouth tucked against his ear, Sirius swears he can hear a faint crackling, uneven and ragged like the moments before a hospice bed became a death bed. 

“ _ The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting”  _ Sirius murmurs, arching his neck until the vertebrae click loudly.

Remus, who for all intents and purposes was irregularly tall, seemed diminished after his brief stint as a wolf, his body wizened and aged by the ordeal. His back, boney and angled in the way that a statue of marble is, was crossed with a mishmash of scars that could inspire the most maddened of Pollock paintings. The welts were raised and pink, angry from the way bone and flesh and sinew had been so destroyed beneath them, and glimmered with that special silver sheen that came from cursed wounds. 

“ _ While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring _ .” 

“Walt Whitman?” 

Remus’ voice is rasping and ruined, torn to shreds by screaming and transformation and vicious animal teeth. It was nothing like the easy way Sirius shed his human form like stepping from his robes, nothing like the way he found joy and comfort in his canine form. It didn’t feel quite fair really, that he could find so much escape in a task that brought Remus so much pain. 

It is 1985 and even Sirius, wrapped up in the wizarding world as he was, had seen the desperate bodies with their sores and brown spots and rolling hacking coughs as a modern day plague rolled over the Western World. He could not help but see the way the Muggles looked at Remus after a bad transformation. Saw him not just as lesser but as dirty and diseased and all the ways that the Wizard World would see him too, if only they knew. 

The local clinic was receiving generous monthly donations from a wealthy unknown benefactor. 

“Have some grudge against Whitman do we Moony?” Sirius says, mustering his most cheerful voice despite his less than peppy thoughts. 

The sunlight was streaming through the great bay windows, bathing both their sleepy bodies in warm golden light. Sirius could feel his skin prickling softly in the warmth, sweat gathering at the back of his neck where hairline met smooth skin. It seemed to not have the same effect on Remus, whose hands were still ice cold and shivered as if it were snowing outside. He tucks himself closer into the crook of Sirius' neck and shoulder and were it not for the difference in their hair color, one might not be able to tell where one began and the other ended. 

“I suppose he was a rather gloomy fellow. And a muggle to boot. Very little imagination with those lot, all doom and gloom and repressed homosexuality.” Sirius continues in the wake of prolonged silence. 

_ Come on Lupin _ , he thinks quietly,  _ play with me. _

The other man is either too tired - _ too weak,  _ the dark corners of his mind supplied - or too irritated to rise to the bait. He simply shifted, rolling his bruised and battered body until the two lovers were more chest to chest than not. In this position Sirius can feel his heartbeat, slightly faster than a normal human and irregular in a normal-for-Remus sort of way. 

He cups the back of Remus’s head, presses him further into the safety of his body with a hand on his mismatched, misaligned rib cage and rocks them slightly. Remus grunts slightly. Sirius hides the teeth of his smile against the follow of his own neck and allows the curtain of his hair to cover them both for a moment. He listens to the two of them breath, always slightly out of sync, out of rhythm. Remus quick and labored, Sirius racing to catch up only to find himself charging ahead only to drop back behind when he tries to slow down. 

“ _ If I vibrate with vibrations other than yours, must you conclude that my flesh is insensitive _ ” That doesn’t fit quite right, so he tries another, brow furrowed and fingers tracing the knobs of Remus’ spine like the knots on a tree, with reverence and a little hint of greed. 

“ _ If there is horror, it is for those who speak indifferently of the next war. If there is hate, it is for the hateful qualities, not nations. If there is love, it is because this alone kept me alive. _ ” 

Remus hums, breaking off into a ragged cough that once again rattles the bones of his chest like ornaments on a christmas tree when one shuts the door a bit too hard. Sirius hugs him to keep the loose pieces from flying away.

“Cahun, I’ll have you know” He says conversationally. “If ever there was a person I’d love to meet, it would have been her.” 

“ _ If I die, _ ” Remus rasps “ _ Leave the balcony open _ .” 

“ _ A boy eats oranges. From my balcony, I see him _ ” Sirius answers automatically “Lorca. Don’t be morbid.” 

“Whitman’s poem is about a ship's captain dying just as they reach safe harbours.” Remus counters. His breath is barely a whisper, hardly more capable of stirring the lightest of parchment than it is of speaking. 

“Yes, but it’s romantic and symbolic. Lorca is just being a miserable little queer.” 

Remus barks out a laugh, not entirely kind in its nature. His teeth are white little tombstones of mirth and Sirius has licked the bitterness from every single one of them. 

“ _ To see you naked is to recall the earth _ ” 

Sirius is the one to laugh now, Remus bouncing on his chest slightly with the force of it “Saucy little tart. Can’t hardly stand and you’re attempting to seduce me!”

Remus turns his head slightly, just so that Sirius can make out the wicked curve of his smiling mouth and the bristle of stubble on his jaw. He lets the sharp of his nail trace the curved shell of Remus’ ear, flushed with fever and flirtation until it glows a soft cherry red. “Is it working though?” 

“ _ How can you tear something out of your heart? Your heart isn’t made of paper and your life isn’t written down in ink. You can’t erase the imprint of years _ ” Sirius murmurs. He tugs and twists and tickles the soft downy curls round Remus’ ear, soft as down feathers, or the blanket that swaddled him as a babe. 

“Grossman. Not even relevant to my flirtations.” Remus says in the voice he uses when he believes himself to be the smartest person in the room. Lily had yet to hear it.

But Siruis finds he does not mind because behind the lofty tone is an undercurrent of strength to his partners voice, hard fought-for and battle weary, but returning to his smooth timbre once again. Besides. 

“Of course it’s relevant. You’re written into my skin and bones and muscle. I could hardly remove my want for you even if I tried. Not by blade nor magic.” Sirius whispers “We’re fated Moony. You and I, we make sense in all the universes. A thousand times over a thousand years and lifetimes and worlds, I know I find you. Can’t erase an imprint like that.” 

The flush in Remus’ ears travels down his neck “What would your mother say, seeing a Noble Black being so soft-hearted.”

“She’d drop dead at the whole man thing. Or perhaps the werewolf thing. We would hardly have time to get to the part where you’ve turned me from a coldhearted heart throb into a sappy woman.” 

“Goodness.” Remus remarks. 

The door to the sunroom opens, the heavy polished mahogany swinging out soundlessly on oiled hinges. James’ head pops in, skin just a touch cooler than the glowing warm wood and curls three times as dark. 

“Oh good. You’re awake.” He says, Harry balanced on one hip “Evan’s said to tell you that brunch is served whenever you two can carry your sorry carcasses downstairs.” 

“Don’t you think it’s strange, Prongs” Sirius says conversationally, offering his godson a cheeky finger wave, “that you still call your wife - who has taken your name mind you- by her last name?” 

James gives a rueful shrug as Harry screams in delight “So she’s told me. But I can’t shake the habit.” his eyes glitter with a specific sort of hetersexual glee that has Siruis making a face as if he’s witnessed his parents kissing “Besides, I do love that woman riled up.” 

“Yes yes, that’s gross please leave. We’re still recovering here.” Sirius says quickly waving his hand in a ‘shoo’ gesture. 

James Potter, famed hero of the First Wizarding War and slayer of Lord Voldemort, Father, and holder of an Order of Merlin, First Class (Jointly, with his wife, who did most of the slaying when it came to the Dark Lord) sticks his tongue out. 

“Alright Remus?” he asks.

“Better, not quite up to snuff, but better.” Remus rasps.

“Good man” James says approvingly “I’ll leave you to your poetry.” 

The door shuts firmly and Sirius waits for the footsteps to fade before he tucks Remus more firmly against him. He drops his lips to Remus’ knuckles, rounded and scarred with bony joints covered in surprisingly soft skin. He can feel the invisible hairs brush against his lips, pleasant in contrast with the hard bone and he takes a moment to rub his lips back and forth across them, enjoying the sensation. 

He decides to return to the Whitman. 

“ _ But Oh Heart! Heart! Heart….”  _

**Author's Note:**

> Quotes:
> 
> “The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting”  
> “While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring.”  
> “But Oh Heart! Heart! Heart….” 
> 
> -Walt Whitman, O Captian my Captain
> 
> ~Walt Whitman was a late 19th-century transcendentalist Poet and Essayist and is sometimes called the Father of Free Verse~ 
> 
> “If I vibrate with vibrations other than yours, must you conclude that my flesh is insensitive”  
> “If there is horror, it is for those who speak indifferently of the next war. If there is hate, it is for the hateful qualities, not nations. If there is love, it is because this alone kept me alive.” 
> 
> -Claude Cahun  
> ~Claude Cahun was a Lesbian Photographer, Writer, and Anti-fascist rebel who actively worked to free Nazi-Occupied France. They are strongly believed to have been Gender-Nonconforming/Nonbinary~
> 
> “If I die, leave the balcony open. A boy eats oranges. From my balcony, I see him” - Despedida, Frederico Garcia Lorca  
> “To see you naked is to recall the earth” - Quasida of The Woman Prone, Frederico Garcia Lorca 
> 
> ~Frederico Lorca as a Spanish Poet, Playwrite and Director who ran in similar groups as Dali and Brunel. His works mostly focused on death, love, and homosexuality as well as his love for his home country. Though he is suspected to have been assassinated by Spanish Nationalist forces in 1936, his body has never been recovered. He left behind almost 300 documents and poems. 
> 
> “How can you tear something out of your heart? Your heart isn’t made of paper and your life isn’t written down in ink. You can’t erase the imprint of years” - Vasily Grossman, Life and Fate 
> 
> ~Vasily Grossman was a Jewish Russian Writer and Journalist. He singlehandedly wrote of the awful conditions in the work camps in Soviet Russia. His work, Life and Fate is universally hailed as the 20th century War and Peace. After a brief bout of fame, under the later years of Stalin's reign, most of his works were seized, censored or destroyed. He died of cancer alone and penniless only a few decades before his Lifework was finally allowed to be published~


End file.
